Sunday, August 28, 2011

Pitchers fail again

Starting pitcher:
M.C. O'Connor

Matt Cain still hasn't learned despite the many hard, cruel lessons. 'Very Good' (Game Score 69) is not going to cut it. You have to be damn-near perfect to be a winning Giants pitcher. Matty lost a two-out, nine-pitch battle with young lefty leadoff hitter Jordan Schafer and the Astros tied up the ball game in the 8th inning. The Giants had fashioned an unlikely rally to take a 2-1 lead after being one-hit through the first six innings by local boy Bud Norris. This time the trip to extra innings was unlucky--Jeremy Affeldt gave up the go-ahead run in the top of the 10th and things looked bad for the local lads. But Mark DeRosa, or Magic Mark as he's known these days, got a huge hit to score Andres Torres (nice to see him back and making a contribution) and even things up. Unfortunately, it was only to prolong the agony. Ramon Ramirez gave the lead back in the 11th and the visitors closed it out. The Astros executed better than the defending champions and won the game and the series. Depressing thought, that.

10 comments:

Please remind what point there is in keeping Aaron Rowand on the Giants anymore. His recent numbers speak for themselves, especially when added onto his entire body-of-work as a Giant. I would have had more faith in Ryan Vogelsong as a PH for Eli Whiteside. Speaking of Whiteside & Chris Stewart, it's inexcusable that we've had several months to respond to the Posey injury & haven't even come up with Ramon Hernandez or a Miguel Olivo. Whiteside & Stewart are just worthless as hitters. Sure, Stewart comes up with the occasional flashy throw, but he also makes a lot of bad ones. Whiteside is a bad Catcher, too. Inexcusable that there has been no move involving a Catcher. Yes, our Pitchers made some mistakes today, but I was a bit perplexed that Bochy left Cain in one hitter too long, then pulled Romo out one hitter too early. I would have liked to have seen Romo finish the inning, so that Affeldt could have started the next one from scratch. All-in-all, a depressing performance.

DeRosa was clearly safe at second. Given the umpire's position, it is amazing that he blew that call. That's a difference maker. But yes, Houston, an AAA team at best, outplayed the Giants all weekend. We split with them, winning two games by one run each. Heartbreaking.

I've no doubt the Giants tried to get a catcher but couldn't work out a satisfactory deal. Sometimes those things can't be done. Injuries have ravaged this team (Posey, FSanchez) and some key 2010 people (Huff, Torres) never got it going for 2011. The nucleus of young pitching talent is still intact, and Posey, Sandoval, and Belt form the nucleus of a lineup to complement them. This year? Getting increasingly hard to believe they have what it takes. Don't worry, I still have my recording ("The Giants are only four back and there's over a month to play with six against AZ, yadda-yadda-yadda") and I play it every day.

I had no problem with Cain finishing the 8th. He had as good a chance as anyone there to get the outs. Romo is just back from the DL so going a little easier on him was OK by me. They didn't get it done--Bochy can't make magic. They have to get the game winning hits when the situation demands it, especially at home. And a crippled bullpen means it will be tougher to keep it close in the late innings. With Wilson and Romo back to full strength things ought to improve. But the offense remains a joke and it is just as easy to lose 1-0 or 2-1 as it is to lose 4-3 in extras. They have not been good enough in August. No excuses. They just have not done the job. The pitchers have allowed 92 runs in 26 games and the hitters have scored 72 runs, that works out to an approximate "expected" 10-16 record, which is exactly what they've done.

The Derosa call at second reminds me of the ishikawa call last year at the plate by Phil Cuzzi. Cuzzi definitely cost us that game last year. The call at second my have turned this game around as well. Also key are batters getting HBP'd without trying at all to get out of the way. The season isn't over yeet but unless these guys take these games into their own hands and do not leave these games to a situation where a call can change things, they ain't going anywhere.

No offense can be this bad this long. Bochy has to figure out how to get a few runs in. He has the pitching, now lets get a few scrappy runs. He needs to play for one run every time he can, because this team is allergic to the big inning.

DeRosa looked out to me...mostly because it was a STUPID attempt (right in front of the RF) and he OVER SLID like a little leaguer. He deserved to be out and I think umps know that sometimes. Your love for DeRosa the last couple days is kinda silly...the man has nothing but bloop singles left in his bat. He is DONE...he plays because of his salary. Just like Rowand. Just like Huff.

I also agree that NOT getting a catcher (which they could have done many ways) will be considered one of the BIG mistakes. They thought these guys could do it and they were wrong. As I said at the time, an upgrade at catcher would have had a bigger impact than Beltran (even if he didn't SUCK) or any other outfielder. TIM TODAY!! Thank Willie.

Once again, in my opinion, failure to address the catching situation is inexcusable. It was immediately clear that Posey had a season-ending injury. It was well-recognized that he was a key part of the team. Failure to address this situation was inexcusable for a supposedly-Championship-seeking team. If you look at the transaction history for even the most run-of-the-mill average Catchers (i.e. a HUGE upgrade over what we decided to go with), they come pretty cheaply. I don't know why I keep going back to him, but Miguel Olivo would be tied (with Beltran) for our team lead in HR's & nearly 2nd in RBI's ... and he isn't that good & has been dealt numerous times for minimal expense. We should have at least been able to get that calibre of player.

What's the deal with the complete lack of faith in Javier Lopez? He would have been the ideal Pitcher to get that Schafer guy out in the 8th inning.

The title of this Post is 'Pitchers Fail Again'. What a sad commentary on where our expectations of this team are. Our Pitchers game up 4 runs in 11 innings (game ERA of 3.27, compared to season ERA of 3.12) & only 2 runs in the initial 9 innings. Yet, they have failed. Our pathetic offense scraped together 8 runs in 4 days against the worst pitching staff in the NL (season ERA of 4.56), but it is the Pitchers who have failed.